


tea and sympathy

by peripetual



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, and helping each other through it, just two mums grieving, kind of crying ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peripetual/pseuds/peripetual
Summary: When Andromeda Tonks approaches Molly Weasley eight days after the battle and thanks her for killing her sister, Molly finally understands.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	tea and sympathy

10 May 1998

Eight days after the battle ends and her world ends with it, Andromeda Tonks approaches Molly and thanks her, shakily. And Molly doesn’t understand, at first, is too distracted by the sudden and awful realization of what this would be like if she had lost Arthur, too, if she had no other children, if all that she was left with was a giggling baby in her arms. 

If she’s honest, that startling moment of perspective stuck with her for months; it didn’t make Fred’s death any better, because nothing could. But it was perversely comforting to know she wasn’t the only one who had ever experienced this, not by a long shot. 

When Andromeda says thank you and Molly realizes that this woman in front of her is thanking her for murdering her own sister, something comes crashing into place in her mind. She hadn’t thought to ask what had happened to Tonks, didn’t want to know anything beyond the horrible moment when she had entered the Great Hall and seen Bill laying her body onto the ground. This girl, the Hufflepuff who came to visit Charlie over the summer holidays when they were fourteen, who made Molly’s own daughter laugh when they were stuck in that god-awful mansion brimming with despair for weeks on end, who finally broke down in tears in Molly’s kitchen at her prodding because her cousin was dead and her aunt was hunting down her family and she was working double shifts for two different crime-fighting organizations in the middle of a war and oh, yeah, the man she was in love with who had admitted to loving her would rather fling himself into abject danger than confront her, and Molly thought that her depression probably had more than a little to do with the fact that Aurors were now patrolling Hogwarts side-by-side with dementors, but all she could do for this girl, whose sparkling courage and conviction reminded her so much of her own daughter, was offer her a mug of tea and a hug. This girl who wasn’t a girl—she was an Auror, the famous Mad-Eye Moody’s favorite protegee, a member of the Order of the Phoenix that Molly’s little brothers had died fighting in, a wife, a _mother_. And someone else’s daughter. 

So when she walked into the Great Hall to see her dead on the ground, it stole all the breath from her lungs—it was all she could do to siphon the dried blood away, trying in vain to save this girl who was already dead as Ginny sobbed into her shoulder. But there was never a chance for her to put two and two together, to internalize the fact that she had been tortured and maimed when a Killing Curse would have sufficed for most Death Eaters, never a chance because right at that moment Molly saw Percy enter the Hall carrying another fresh body and Molly’s world had shattered. 

So when Molly realized, now, eight days later, that Tonks had been killed by her own aunt… All she could do was nod at Andromeda, mutter the first thing that came to her mind, unbidden. “She tried to kill my daughter.” Later, she would chastise herself for the lack of tact, but Andromeda didn’t seem to mind, face already too pale and lined with grief to really look any more despairing. 

They became friends, after that. They would meet for tea once a week or so, quietly in the backyard of the Burrow. Sometimes they would talk about Fred and Nymphadora, whose full name Molly had always found quite amusing but sounded devastatingly beautiful on the lips of her grieving mother. Sometimes they talked about other things, normal things; Bill and Fleur were expecting, and Teddy was getting so big, and did you read that new mystery novel about the witch who owned that museum? 

Four months after the battle, Molly said something about George reopening the joke shop, accidentally referring to ‘the twins’ instead of just ‘George.’ She started sobbing, then, the grief unexpected on a quiet sunny morning, but Andromeda seemed to understand. 

A week later, Andromeda stared at a muffin she had brought over and quietly confessed that Nymphadora’s features morphed back to their natural state when she died, admitted to wondering what Bellatrix was thinking as she tortured a girl who, as she was in more and more pain, looked more and more like her little sister, more and more like herself. Molly didn’t know what to say to that, thinking about that horrible time when Tonks had lost her ability to morph, remembered privately thinking that despite looking so tired and so thin and so miserable, her features were, in a haunting way, more beautiful than ever. Her natural face was rather similar to the one she wore on a daily basis, but her cheekbones were a little higher, her eyes grayer, her expressions sharper with traces of her haughty ancestry. The family resemblance to her mother and her killer was obvious, and Molly wondered now what it was like to go through life changing your own face in order to avoid looking like the Dark Lord’s most devoted servant. 

Andromeda didn't say anything more, staring into space. Molly said nothing, too, hoping she was exuding the calm and understanding presence that Andromeda tended to provide for her. But as Andromeda was forced to contemplate what Bellatrix was thinking when she murdered her daughter, Molly found herself wondering in horror what it must have felt like for Tonks to die staring at a face that looked like her own mother.


End file.
